Now, let me start off by saying that this matter does not affect Scotland, and so some may wonder why I bother to blog about it.
My answer is that it is less the actual item, but more the principle that bothers me, and that the perpetrators, in certain matters, govern my country as well as England.
The matter in hand is the English NHS’s centralized database which Labour had set up and was ready to roll as of April passed. Both Conservative and Liberal Democrat election manifestos promised to scale back on what they called Labour's database state, and both parties' health spokesmen pledged before the poll that the centralizing of NHS medical records would be halted.
Halted?
It was therefore a rather strange situation when, in a parliamentary written answer (the type used to slip out bad news) the Heath minister Simon Burns said: "Uploading of information to the Summary Care Record will continue to take place, where the relevant general practitioner practices and primary care trusts (PCTs) agree that patients have been adequately informed about the process, and properly enabled to opt out should they wish, and where GP practices and PCTs are satisfied that data are of an appropriate quality for sharing."
Well, that seems like a very strange “HALTED” to me.
OK. We can argue till the cows come home about whether or not this centralized system is a
good idea or not. If you have just been in an accident, are unconscious, in another town in your country, and allergic to say morphine, you may be very glad that your record is accessible; if on the other hand, someone sticks the whole thing onto a memory stick and sells it to the highest bidder, then you may not.
It isn’t that that I want to discuss. It is the fact that with around a month gone since the election the coalition has changed its tune on some of the Labour’s Surveillance Society that was due to be dismantled.
What excuse can there be? It’s not a coalition compromise. Neither party was in favour of it. Last year, Stephen O'Brien, health spokesman for the Tories, said a Conservative government would dismantle the NHS IT system. And earlier this year Norman Lamb, health spokesman for the Liberals said that the NHS IT scheme had been a disastrous waste of money and should be abandoned.
So why not abandon it?
It can’t be that there was something top secret that, as opposition parties, they were not allowed to know about, as there may sometimes be in say Defence or Treasury, or to do with the Secret Services. Nope, this is just a policy about health data bases, nothing secret or dangerous.... except of course to the people who are on them.
So, why the change?
Any ideas?
We’ve already had the policy that the size of parliament is to be reduced, but first they have to create 200 or so new Lords.
So what is next for U-turns?
My answer is that it is less the actual item, but more the principle that bothers me, and that the perpetrators, in certain matters, govern my country as well as England.
The matter in hand is the English NHS’s centralized database which Labour had set up and was ready to roll as of April passed. Both Conservative and Liberal Democrat election manifestos promised to scale back on what they called Labour's database state, and both parties' health spokesmen pledged before the poll that the centralizing of NHS medical records would be halted.
Halted?
It was therefore a rather strange situation when, in a parliamentary written answer (the type used to slip out bad news) the Heath minister Simon Burns said: "Uploading of information to the Summary Care Record will continue to take place, where the relevant general practitioner practices and primary care trusts (PCTs) agree that patients have been adequately informed about the process, and properly enabled to opt out should they wish, and where GP practices and PCTs are satisfied that data are of an appropriate quality for sharing."
Well, that seems like a very strange “HALTED” to me.
OK. We can argue till the cows come home about whether or not this centralized system is a
good idea or not. If you have just been in an accident, are unconscious, in another town in your country, and allergic to say morphine, you may be very glad that your record is accessible; if on the other hand, someone sticks the whole thing onto a memory stick and sells it to the highest bidder, then you may not.It isn’t that that I want to discuss. It is the fact that with around a month gone since the election the coalition has changed its tune on some of the Labour’s Surveillance Society that was due to be dismantled.
What excuse can there be? It’s not a coalition compromise. Neither party was in favour of it. Last year, Stephen O'Brien, health spokesman for the Tories, said a Conservative government would dismantle the NHS IT system. And earlier this year Norman Lamb, health spokesman for the Liberals said that the NHS IT scheme had been a disastrous waste of money and should be abandoned.
So why not abandon it?
It can’t be that there was something top secret that, as opposition parties, they were not allowed to know about, as there may sometimes be in say Defence or Treasury, or to do with the Secret Services. Nope, this is just a policy about health data bases, nothing secret or dangerous.... except of course to the people who are on them.
So, why the change?
Any ideas?
We’ve already had the policy that the size of parliament is to be reduced, but first they have to create 200 or so new Lords.
So what is next for U-turns?
